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Deconstruction of Women's Beauty Standard on Social Media: An Analysis

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 Proceeding International Conference on Religion, Science and Education (2022) 1, 727-733

Deconstruction of Women’s Beauty Standard on Social

Media: An Analysis

Ma’isyatusy Syarifah1,*, Dewi Putri Nurjanah2, Nur Atikah3, Ahmad Zadul Ma’ad Syarif4
1University of Malaya, Malaysia,

2UIN KH. Achmad Siddiq Jember,

3Universitas Gadjah Mada,

4UIN KH. Achmad Siddiq Jember.

Corresponding author*
maisyasyarifah@ymail.com

Abstract: Women and beauty are identical entities. Beauty is considered a feminine trait and becomes a necessity that has
been deeply rooted in the wider social system and is culturally indoctrinated, and has even become a trend on social media.
Every day, women are haunted and convinced by the standardization of beauty, which increasingly plunges women into the
praise of beauty. This also makes many social media accounts that take a lot of interest and profit by creating Instagram
accounts that contain photos of beautiful women. This research highlights the deconstruction of women's beauty standards
on social media, and how whether the post is an act of exploitation against women. A thorough qualitative method is used to
examine social media especially Instagram which displays many photos of beautiful females. This study shows, first, the
female beauty standard in social media mostly concerning beautiful and fashionable women. Second, the post on Instagram
is an act of exploitation of women and is more concerned only with women’s beauty rather than women’s achievement.

Keywords: Beauty standard, exploitation, women's achievements.

Introduction One example of the application of standards

The concept of female beauty has always been a
topic of discussion and a separate trend in society.
The beauty of very diverse women is not limited to
facial beauty, but also the beauty of skin color,
body, hair, and others. Even the beauty of women
that is often invisible is beauty that comes from
within the soul of the woman herself (inner
beauty). The difference in the meaning of each
person to the concept of beauty has resulted in the
emergence of various cultural and media studies in
the academic realm (Anastasia, 2006). These
various views are the impact of the dynamics of life
that continues to change and develop in society.
Along with the rapid development of digital
technology, the concept of women's beauty is
produced and reproduced through social media
such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram which
displays various images or images of women who
are considered beautiful.
and the concept of beauty in Instagram can be seen
through an account with the name @uinkhas
Cantik. Account @uinkhas Cantik which has 3450
followers. This account contains a collection of
photos of students at the KH State Islamic
University. Ahmad Siddiq Jember. An account
managed by the Admin selects and selects student
photos that have certain beauty criteria by
uploading photos to the Instagram feed. Photos
that have been selected through the selection
process, will be displayed with the name, faculty,
study program, year, and hashtag
(#uinkhascantik). Similar accounts are also found
in various universities including @ugmcantik,
@ui.cantik, @uns.cantik, @ums.cantik,
@anakipbcantik and there are many more similar
accounts.
The beauty displayed through several photos on
Instagram accounts such as @uinkhas Cantik uses
certain standard criteria including feminine

Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under a CC BY license.
ISSN 2829-3355 | EISSN 2828-8467
728 Proceeding International Conference on Religion, Science and Education (2022) 1
women with white skin, fashion-able, using make-
up, slim, modern. If observed, before carrying out
the photo selection process, the admin
@uinkhascantik will search for photos of UIN Khas
Jember students with the hashtag #uinkhascantik
or get recommendations from other users. This
next process is to determine which photos are
eligible to be displayed so that they are considered
to meet the previously established beauty
standards. The selected photo then received
thousands of likes and comments from followers
@uinkhascantik. Even the students themselves took
pictures and posted on their own Instagram and
then tagged Instagram @uinkhascantik. This shows
that they want to be reposted on Instagram
@uinkhascantuk, and they want to be recognized
as beautiful students according to the standards of
the @uinkhascantuk account. From this
background, beauty becomes interesting to look at
critically using the perspective of cultural studies
to see power relations, body autonomy, and
cultural influences in social media.
Research Method
The method used in this research is descriptive
qualitative. Using paradigms and critically
analyzing with the study of deconstruction and
semiotics. This research will be mainly concerned
with the critical examination of materials derived
from primary and secondary sources. Primary
sources include social media accounts that have
beautiful female usernames. Through semiotics,
there are symbols and signs seen from social media
that display beautiful women based on their
standards. While secondary sources in the form of
textbooks, journal articles, seminar papers,
newspapers, and data from supporting documents
that are relevant to the research topic are then
analyzed descriptively.
Results and Discussion
Deconstruction of Women Beauty Standard on
Social Media
In his book entitled Grammatology (1976) quoted
from Pradoko (2017), Derrida introduces
deconstruction theory that rejects structuralism
based on logo centrism to reveal a reality which
one thing as the central and single element to
neglect other elements. Another concept
introduced by Derrida (1968) is Difference quoted
from Muslimin (2019) generally, difference means
to differentiate and to delay. He explains the term
“different” with “differEnce” and “differAnce”
which means to differ (differentiate) and to difer
(delay).
Derrida’s theory emphasizes the critical way to
understand the meaning of a text or context from
different ways as well as present assumptions
behind the text or context. This theory suggests the
deconstructor to analyze the relationship of
contradiction and opposition from a text or context
to form a new construction which is in line with
the statement of Rohman (2014) that
deconstruction is new construction as the solution
from the inconsistencies from the old construction.
The deconstruction of women's beauty
standards can be seen from the evolution of
women’s beauty standards in Indonesia which the
new beauty standard construction deconstructed
the old beauty standard. The ideal beauty standard
in 1960-1970 was thin, brown skin and wavy hair.
In the 1980 era, the ideal beauty standard was
smooth and soft skin. Then in the 1990 era, the
ideal beauty standard was more complex and
complicated. There were more criteria such as ideal
body was not a thin body anymore but a curvy
body which was not too thin but not too fat. Good
skin was not only smooth and soft skin but also fair
and bright skin (Bender, 2021).
The deconstruction of women’s beauty
standards appears from time to time, it’s like the
exotic skin represented with brown skin that used
to be popular among girls in the 1960 era was
deconstructed with the ideal skin color and tone
with yellow and bright skin. The deconstruction
also appears on body shape, from the thin body to
be the curvy body that is not too thin but not too
fat. The interpretation of skin color and body shape
change the beauty standard on society which gets
the influence from media.
The deconstruction of women's beauty
standards emerges through the trend on traditional
media mass. Like in 1960-1990 the mainstream
 Syarifah et al. – Deconstruction of Women’s Beauty Standard
media such as television, magazine, and
newspaper are to be the trend maker, then in 2000
era was shifted to social media. Social media is
widely used by society from different
backgrounds, thus it plays a big role to construct
new beauty standards.
Unlike traditional media mass, social media
provides wide options and can be used by all
people around the world. Several options provided
by social media that are not provided by traditional
media, namely: 1) users not only limited to models
and celebrities, 2) users mostly only show the best
version of themselves (mostly in physical aspects)
like uploading the most attractive photo, 3)
generally, users interact with their closest people
like family, friends, and peers on social media, 4)
social media provides the wide range of features
like comment, share and like sections (Fardouly &
Vartanian, 2016).
The wide options provided by social media give
many chances for people to be the trend maker and
the chance to be popular. Nowadays, celebrities are
not only limited to who appear on television but
also the trend maker on social media which is
usually called selebgram, selebtok, etc. To be popular
on social media and become social media
celebrities, they should have a high number of
followers, likes, and repost. They should campaign
a specific and interesting message on social media
or follow the challenge from the viral trend to be
popular. The fast news spread on social media
makes something easy to be viral that usually
inspires the follower to do the viral challenge or
popular trend. Therefore, the dynamic change on
social media can influence the deconstruction of
women's beauty standards.
The high exposure of social media from users'
favorite influencers, peers, and followers influences
the users to expect unrealistic body imagery. They
have a high expectation of body imagery cause
people only post the most attractive photo or
video. To have an attractive photo or video, the
users do many efforts like putting on make-up,
diet, buying new clothes, even plastic surgery to
fulfill social expectations which indirectly decrease
body positivity and self-acceptance. With the high
exposure of social media, it can make the users
729
have body concerns and body dissatisfaction
(Ando et al. 2021).
Social media makes the users compare their
physical appearance with their peers or favorite
influencers which only creates unrealistic
expectations. Even though, the users know that
their peers or favorite influencers have edited or
filtered the picture to get the most attractive one
which can be far from the real condition, they still
do the same thing to fulfill their expectations.
Many social media celebrities promote different
types of beauty which can change absolute beauty
standards but sadly only mainstream and popular
beauty standards are followed by social media
users. Eventually, it deconstructs new beauty
standards and does not make beauty become a
relative perception. It can make the user has low
body positivity and only focus on their physical
appearance and ignore other achievements to fulfill
the mainstream beauty standards on social media
which can harm the users. It is in line with the
result of the research conducted by Tallat N et al.
(2017) that body dissatisfaction brings negative
impacts on students' academic achievement. The
students who satisfy with their appearance tend to
have a higher grade. Although the dynamic beauty
standards on social media can promote beauty
positivity and construct many beauty standards,
most of the followers still follow the mainstream
beauty standard.
The Exploitation of Women in Social Media
The beautiful student accounts mostly belong to
every university in Indonesia. They posted many
photos that have been selected by their own
standard of beauty. The photo posted gets several
responds such as like and comments. Along with
it, the beautiful student accounts attract number of
follower and increase number of like and
comment. The number of followers gives them
profit by paid promotion services and
endorsements.
The situation seen as an opportunity and they
continue to selected students’ photo and post it
frequently. These phenomena clearly put women
as an object of visualization to gain a profit.
According to the philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1797), objectification the process of lowering a
730 Proceeding International Conference on Religion, Science and Education (2022) 1
person value as a human being to the status of an
object. Along with social phenomena, self-
objectification turns into self-surveillance, causing
psychological consequences and mental health
risks. According to Fredrickson and Roberts (1997),
the cultural practice of objectification leads to self-
objectification. Self-Objectification refers to the
process that women internalize and accept the
beliefs that society constructed (Mckay, 2013).
Feminist theory argues that the disclosure of
visual experiences faced by women has led them to
internalize visual objectification and change
themselves. That is, women see and treat
themselves as objects to be evaluated based on
their appearance (Hermawan & Hamzah, 2017). As
an object, the photos in the account of this beautiful
student motivated women to be perfectly beautiful
as social media constructed. And the validation is
approved when they photo posted by those kind of
accounts.
Festinger (1954) suggested that humans are
believed to have an innate drive to compare
themselves with other individuals. This action has
several purposes including self-evaluation, making
decisions in behavior based on their social
environment, and modifying cognition to increase
self-esteem. In doing a comparison, there are two
possible scenarios, the first is an upward
comparison and the second is a downward
comparison. The upward direction of social
comparison occurs when a person compares
himself to others who are better. The downward
comparison occurs when a person compares
himself to someone who is worse (Reategui &
Palmer, 2017).
These two directions of comparison have
different contrasting effects. If the comparison is
upward then this will trigger negative emotions,
such as envy, body-dissatisfaction, or frustration.
Meanwhile, if the comparison is downward, then
this will trigger positive emotions, such as relief or
satisfaction. This also applies to women in using
social media.
Social media has succeeded in shifting beauty
standards from time to time. As the social media
user, women triggered to compare themselves with
others continuously. The more women use the
social media, the more the more often they
compare themselves to others on social media.
Moreover, physical appearance plays an important
role in social media. In addition, being posted by
the beautiful student account is such as a
validation that they were beautiful. But otherwise,
not being posted in those kind of account will
resulted body-dissatisfaction.
Body modification refers to the deliberate or
permanent altering of an individual's human
anatomy or appearance (Henriques & Patnaik,
2016). Body dissatisfaction caused several negative
impacts such as eating disorders. Women who
experienced this symptom to women who are
trying to change their appearance in order to have
a slim body as portrayed in social media beauty
standard (Natasya et al. 2021). The body-
dissatisfaction triggered women to have a perfect
body and appearance as the social media standard.
They will not even hesitate to make body
modifications, both full and partial body
modifications.
Fredrickson and Roberts (1997) find that self-
objectification also lead to depression and eating
disorders. Women strive to change their body and
appearance through fashion, exercise, diet, beauty
products, and even worse surgery and eating
disorders (Mckay, 2013). Besides, since they do not
look perfectly beautiful, women tend to avoid
meeting friends, going to school or work, dating
and another social activity. And lastly, the will not
enjoying their life and it will lead to a depression
or even worse a self-harming.
The need to be perfectly beautiful seen as an
opportunity by capitalist. Capitalist come to fulfill
their need by offering many kind of treatments or
skin care. They realizes that women mostly
dissatisfy with their own body and women strive
to achieve the validation if beauty as the beauty
standard in social media.
The treatments were focused on the beauty
standard nowadays such as a fair skin, slim body
etc. The treatments offered are in the form of white
injections, white infusions, skin lightening
supplements and others. While some plastic
surgeries are also offered such as jaw shaping
surgery, lip fillers, breast implants and others.
Because entrepreneurs realize that anything
women will do to get a body that matches beauty
 Syarifah et al. – Deconstruction of Women’s Beauty Standard
standards on social media, they don't even hesitate
to provide treatments or beauty products that are
harmful to health. All the impacts explained,
women who are the most suffer by this condition.
They suffer a psychological impact and also the
physical impact.
Subordination of Women's Achievements
The construction of beauty is something that is not
universal. Beauty that develops in society forms
the view that beauty is part of female femininity.
Physical appearance such as body, face, eyebrows,
eyes, hair, to the attributes used by women, such as
clothes, is very important to determine the level of
women's beauty. The concept of beauty is not
something natural or taken for granted, but a socio-
cultural construction. Media texts carry out the
form of image production and reproduction
continuously, as well as beauty. Women will be
said to be beautiful not only based on white,
smooth, toned, young skin. But also highlight
certain body parts such as the chest, hips, lips,
eyes, and everything related to disciplining
women's bodies with the standards of society itself.
The single positivistic way of thinking about
beauty standards often leads to oppression (Amin,
2015). This oppression is often not realized by
many women. For example, many women are not
treated properly just because they are not
considered beautiful based on the beauty standards
created by social media, even though in terms of
their abilities, these women have qualities and
capabilities that meet the established work
standards. In Indonesia today, even the standard of
beauty used is to make the beauty of Caucasians
from the west or Korea the benchmark for beauty,
for example, it can be seen from several soap
operas and advertisements on TV that most of the
artists who play soap operas/films/advertisements
are mostly foreign-born artists. This country, which
has the characteristics of white skin, sharp nose,
sharp eyes, tall and slender, etc., and of course this
is very far from the posture and beauty of a native
Indonesian. On the other hand, artists who are
naturally beautiful with Indonesian characteristics
are much more qualified. In other cases, women
are always seen more from their physical
appearance than their achievements. For example,
731
from some news, it is stated "Besides Beautiful,
These 5 Indonesian Women Have Achievements".
In the news narrative, it is clear that the main focus
is beauty as if to say that beauty is more important
than achievement, and if it is not beautiful,
existence will not be seen.
Oppression in the context of beauty is different
from the concept of oppression in the Marxist-
orthodox view that occurs in the factories of the
proletariat whose surplus value is being exploited
by the bourgeoisie. Marx's economic deterministic
analysis was later criticized by neo-Marxist figures,
(Suseno, 2013) one of which was Gramsci who
proposed a cultural view with the same prophetic
characteristics as the goals of Marxism, but he
formulated his ideas into alternative and more
complex ideas. (Mahadika, 2021) The concept of
beauty, which is constructed by mass culture and
media, is reproduced continuously so that it is
considered a natural thing, something that does not
need to be critically questioned as a form of
hegemony. Hegemony allows people to accept
oppression as a natural thing and even feel happy
and accept it as it is. According to Antonio
Gramsci, hegemony is the power that occurs which
is the chains of victories obtained through a
consensus mechanism rather than through violence
or oppression of other social classes. (Siswati, 2018)
Efforts to lead people to assess and view social
problems by winning consensus are to determine
directly or indirectly the cognitive (ideational)
structures of society through hegemonic products
that are seen as morally and intellectually correct
so that the dominance of compromise ideas occurs
naturally and is not questioned again.
Women who accept and follow these beauty
standards, then try to change their physical
appearance to meet the beauty criteria in society.
For example, using various kinds of beauty
cosmetics, managing the body by dieting, to doing
plastic surgery are some of the efforts made by
women who experience hegemony or in a term as
symbolic violence (Fatmawati, 2020). To achieve
beauty, a lot of effort must be made. How women
judge their bodies will usually be closely related to
how the social and cultural environment outside of
themselves judges women's bodies. This means
that women will always try to adjust their body
732 Proceeding International Conference on Religion, Science and Education (2022) 1
shape to what social and cultural words say about
the concept of beauty itself. Unconsciously, accept
commercial messages as truth rather than a
construction. Capitalism plays a big role in
convincing women that today's ideal body is more
desirable and achievable. And the industries
engaged in the beauty sector are growing rapidly
(Fahimah, 2017).
Women will always try to adjust their body
shape to what social and cultural words say about
the concept of beauty itself. Unconsciously, accept
commercial messages as truth rather than a
construction. Capitalism plays a big role in
convincing women that today's ideal body is more
desirable and achievable. (Laendra & Vardiansyah,
2017) And the industries engaged in the beauty
sector are growing rapidly. The beauty standards
are constructions, which change from time to time
are a form of reaction to social, economic, and
political conditions. This is seen by the capitalists,
where the capitalists want to perpetuate these
standards by creating beauty products for women.
(Synott, 2007) By creating these products, the
capitalists establish their beauty standards to
support their products. According to Louis
Althusser, it is not only a framework of ideas but
also material practices, where ideology is brought
together with daily practice or behavior in society.
(Storey, 2009) Beauty myths are constructed
through various discursive exposures to
advertising media, books, films, and so on.
Conclusion
Discussions related to beauty standards are often
packaged with contempt for one's body or are
often known as body shaming. There are no
specific rules of beauty standards around women.
All women have their beauty standards. Women
will look beautiful when they believe that they are
beautiful when they are confident with everything
in their bodies. Women who believe in the
existence of beauty standards, then think that they
do not meet the standards, so that their confidence
is lost, then at that time women have lost their
identity.
Deconstruction destroys dichotomous binary
oppositions and gives rise to new meanings that go
beyond established concepts. Appearance is not a
standard of beauty that produces domination and
being dominated but treats it as a fully human
subject, not as an object. Beauty in the end is not
seen from mere physical criteria, nor is it compared
with the opposite meaning. The concept of beauty
will have a new meaning based on the context and
dynamics of interpretation more freely and freely.
The practice of meaning is a form of counter-
hegemony. Women's beauty goes beyond the
established criteria of physical form as embraced
by modernism, but beauty is seen as an attitude
and behavior, accepting, caring, honest, which
upholds the emancipation of fellow human beings.
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